The Math Kids: A Sequence of Events

by David Cole

  “Okay, let’s get over to Catherine’s house and see what’s really going on,” Stephanie said.

  When we got to Catherine’s house, we were met at the door by a man wearing a suit. He looked at us suspiciously and asked what we wanted.

  “Is Catherine home?” Stephanie asked. “We’re friends of hers from school.”

  “She’s not available,” the man responded.

  “Are you her—” Stephanie began, but the man closed the door in our faces.

  “What was that all about?” I asked.

  “That’s what I’m going to find out,” said Stephanie as she knocked loudly on the front door.

  The man in the suit cracked the door open and saw it was us again.

  “What do you want?” he asked.

  “We’re friends of Catherine’s from school,” Stephanie replied.

  “You already told me that. And I said she’s not available.”

  “Is she sick?” Stephanie asked.

  “Did I say she was sick?” the man replied with a scowl on his face.

  “No.”

  “That’s right. I said she was unavailable. You know what that word means, right?”

  “Yeah, I know what it means.”

  “Then let me repeat it. She is unavailable,” the man said as he once again closed the door in our faces.

  We stepped off the porch and retreated to the sidewalk.

  “What do we do now?” Justin asked.

  “I’ll tell you what we’re going to do,” said Stephanie defiantly. “We’re going to find Catherine.

  She marched down the sidewalk away from Catherine’s house.

  “Where are you going?” I asked.

  Stephanie didn’t respond as she walked quickly down the sidewalk. Justin and I had to run to catch her at the corner.

  “I’ve got to get home but meet me back here as soon as you’re done with dinner,” Stephanie said tersely.

  “What’s your plan?” Justin asked.

  “Just trust me,” she answered as she turned and started to jog toward her house.

  After dinner, Justin and I walked back to the same corner. Stephanie was already there, impatiently pacing back and forth.

  “It’s about time,” she said. “Let’s go.”

  Without another word, Stephanie walked away quickly, with Justin and me following in her wake. She made a left-hand turn at the next corner and I thought I knew where she was going.

  “You’re going around the back of her house, aren’t you?” I asked.

  Stephanie didn’t respond, but I knew I had guessed right when she walked between two houses midway down the block. She stopped at a row of bushes near the rear of Catherine’s backyard. We all ducked behind the shrubbery so we couldn’t be seen from the windows at the back of the house.

  “What now?” Justin asked.

  “Now we wait,” Stephanie answered.

  “Wait for what?” I asked.

  “I don’t know, but we need to do something,” she said in frustration.

  As it turned out, we didn’t have to wait very long. We were watching the back of the house when we saw Catherine walk past the sliding glass door leading to the deck behind the house. She disappeared, but then we saw her again in another window. She stopped in front of the window and looked out into the backyard. Stephanie stood up and began to wave.

  “What are you doing?” I said as I tried to pull her back down behind the bushes. “She’ll see you!”

  “That’s the idea,” Stephanie said.

  Catherine finally noticed Stephanie waving her hands. Catherine took a quick glance around her, then quickly raised and lowered her hand several times.

  “What does that mean?” Justin asked.

  “She wants us to stay out of sight,” Stephanie said excitedly.

  We ducked behind the bushes. Twenty minutes later we heard the back door slide open. Peeking through the bushes, we saw Catherine throw something onto the deck. Whatever it was, it slid off the deck and into a flower bed. We heard a man’s voice yelling and the sliding door slammed shut. The curtains swished closed, and we lost sight of Catherine.

  We crouched behind the bushes until the sun had set and deep shadows fell over Catherine’s backyard.

  “It’s time,” Stephanie finally announced.

  “Time for what?” I asked.

  “Time to get whatever it is Catherine threw out the door.”

  Before we could stop her, Stephanie was running across the backyard. She was almost to the deck when a spotlight above the back door clicked on, shining brightly across the yard. Stephanie dove to the ground, half in and half out of the flower bed. The curtain parted, and we could see the man in the suit staring out. The back door opened, and he stepped out onto the deck. Stephanie lay frozen on the ground. She was out of sight but would be seen if the man took a couple more steps across the deck.

  That’s when Catherine came to the rescue.

  “Hey!” she shouted from the back door.

  The man in the suit turned. Catherine raised her hand and the backyard was plunged into darkness. Stephanie took that opportunity to make a run for it. She flew across the width of the deck, crouching low to remain as invisible as possible. The man in the suit reached into the doorway and flipped a switch. The backyard was once again filled with light. By that time, however, Stephanie had made it around the corner of the house and was safely hidden from view.

  Justin and I sprinted back to the street and caught up with Stephanie at the end of Catherine’s block. She was reading a crumpled sheet of paper in the glow of the streetlight.

  “I’m calling an emergency meeting of the Math Kids!” she yelled as we approached. “Catherine’s dad is in trouble, and we might be the only ones who can save him.”

  CHAPTER 11

  The Math Kids met in Justin’s basement. Stephanie had the crumpled piece of paper she had retrieved from Catherine’s flower bed.

  “Okay, what do you mean Catherine’s dad is in trouble?” I asked. “What does the note say?”

  Stephanie laid the piece of paper on the table. Justin peered over my shoulder as I read the note aloud.

  Stephanie,

  I hope you get this message. The guy in the suit is from the FBI. My dad has been kidnapped. He’s been working on a math formula for the military, to help them encrypt satellite messages. The FBI won’t let me out of the house. They said it’s for my protection.

  The kidnappers sent a ransom note. They want the formula. My dad added a note at the bottom of the ransom letter so the FBI would know he’s still alive. I think he added a code for me to find him. I can’t solve it by myself, so I hope you guys can help. Here’s what my dad wrote:

  For a few moments, none of us said anything. Normally, Justin would have been thrilled at the opportunity to solve a math problem, but now we all sat in stunned silence. This wasn’t just a math problem-this was about saving someone’s life!

  “Where do we start?” I asked. “Does anyone know anything about Fibonacci numbers?”

  “I do.” Stephanie smiled. “Catherine told me.”

  Stephanie pulled out the tattered book Catherine had given her and opened it to the page she had bookmarked.

  “The Fibonacci sequence was named after an Italian mathematician named Leonardo of Pisa, who was also known as Fibonacci. He wrote about the sequence in a book he wrote in 1202. The first two numbers in the sequence are one and one. You get the next number in the sequence by adding the last two numbers. To get the third number, you add one and one to get two. To get the fourth number, you add one and two to get three. The sequence keeps going like that.”

  Stephanie wrote down the first few numbers of the Fibonacci sequence on Justin’s whiteboard:

  We looked at the numbers and then back at the note again. No one said a word as we tried to understand the message Catherine’s dad was trying to send to his daughter.

  “I think Catherine is right,” Justin said. “I think underlining those
two words was definitely the first clue. There are other clues there, too, I think. In the second sentence, he says ‘I think you’ll find where I am.’ I think he’s telling us that the message is a clue to where he is.”

  “That’s brilliant!” I said.

  “I think the first part of the message is telling us how he hid the message. I think he hid his location in the second half of the message,” Justin said.

  We all looked at the message again:

  “I think you may be right, Justin,” Stephanie said. “Look at the first four words. If you take out the word ‘usually,’ it would say ‘I am at.’”

  “Maybe the Fibonacci sequence will tell us which words to remove!” I shouted.

  For the next half hour, we tried removing words, but nothing seemed to make any sense. We were about to give up when I had an idea.

  “What if it’s not about which words to remove?” I asked. “What if the Fibonacci sequence is telling us which words to keep?”

  We circled the first two words, since the first two numbers in the Fibonacci sequence are 1 and 1. We then counted two words and circled that word, then three and circled that one. We kept circling the words as described by the Fibonacci sequence. When we were done, the note looked like this:

  Stephanie wrote the circled words on the board:

  “Well, it was a good idea, Jordan, but that doesn’t make any sense, either,” Stephanie said glumly.

  “Any ideas, Justin?” I asked.

  Justin nodded his head. “Um hmm,” he answered, but he wasn’t really responding to my question. He was off in what I called his “zone.” He gets so deep in thought that he turns everything else off. When he is in the zone he will answer “um hmm” to anything you say. We waited quietly as he stared at the nonsense sentence Stephanie had written on the board. Finally, he looked up with a large smile.

  “They’re not words,” he said.

  “What’s not words?” I asked.

  “The words in the sentence. They aren’t words.”

  “You lost me,” Stephanie said. “What do you mean the words aren’t words?”

  “The words are numbers. It will be easier if I show you,” Justin said as he picked up a marker.

  Underneath the message, he wrote this:

  It took Stephanie and me a few seconds to understand, but then it made perfect sense. Catherine’s dad had used words that sounded just like numbers, so instead of “for,” he really meant the number 4. Instead of “to,” he meant the number 2. “Apart” was just an abbreviation for apartment. Instead of the word “see,” he really meant the letter C.

  “Oh my gosh,” Stephanie said. “We know where the kidnappers are holding Catherine’s father!”

  CHAPTER 12

  What do we do now?” I asked.

  I had met Stephanie and Justin on the playground before school. We had all told our parents we needed to get in early to practice for the math competition the next day. Little did they know, the math competition was the furthest thing from our minds.

  “I think we should go to the FBI and tell them what we know,” Stephanie said.

  “What if they don’t believe us?” I asked. “We’re just kids. Do you really think we have a chance of convincing them?”

  “Maybe not, but what other choice do we have?”

  “We need to gather more evidence,” Justin said.

  “Are you crazy? You are not talking about going to that apartment, are you?” I asked.

  Justin didn’t answer, but I could tell by the look on his face that it was exactly what he was thinking. Stephanie began to nervously tug on her ponytail.

  The school bell sounded.

  “Meet me by the flagpole at noon,” Justin said. He then turned and headed away from the school building.

  “What about school? Where are you going?” I called after him.

  “Just meet me by the flagpole at noon,” he called back.

  And with that, Justin was gone. Stephanie and I walked slowly into the school, continuing to look back to see if Justin had changed his mind. We had math group that morning, but we didn’t even try to solve any of the problems Mrs. Gouche gave us. Our teacher looked at us suspiciously several times but didn’t say anything. Instead of working on the problems, Stephanie and I whispered back and forth, trying to figure out what Justin was up to. The morning dragged on with nothing for us to do but worry.

  At half past eleven the lunch bell rang, but neither of us felt like eating. We sat in the cafeteria until the crowd of kids made their way out to the playground. Stephanie and I waited until we were the only ones left, then snuck back into the hallway and exited the school through the front entrance. We ran down the walkway until we got to the flagpole in the front circular driveway. We looked around, but Justin was nowhere to be found.

  “Now what?” Stephanie asked.

  “He’ll be here,” I said. “Trust me, Justin has a plan.”

  “That’s what I’m worried about.” Stephanie’s fingers drifted to her ponytail for another nervous tug.

  We heard a horn honk and a car pulled into the drive, Justin’s mom at the wheel. Justin called from the front seat, “C’mon guys, we’re going to be late for practice.”

  “What is he talking about?” Stephanie asked me quietly.

  “Just go with it,” I said.

  The car was a surprise, but not as big as the one we found in the back seat. Catherine Duchesne was sitting against the window with a bulky backpack on her lap. She had a forced smile on her face. Stephanie and I got in the back seat without saying a word.

  “Are you kids excited about the competition?” asked Mrs. Grant.

  “Um, sure,” I answered.

  “I’m just glad we’ve got one more afternoon to practice and we’ve got a team to practice against,” Justin said.

  Stephanie looked sideways at me. I shrugged my shoulders to let her know I had no idea what Justin was talking about.

  “Luckily, my mom was available to drive us to the school,” Justin continued.

  “Yeah, that was lucky alright,” I said lamely.

  Everyone in the car went silent. Stephanie and I just stared at Catherine and Justin, trying to figure out what was going on. Questions ran through our heads as Mrs. Grant drove through the tree-lined streets. Catherine’s face was tense, and she fiddled with the straps on the backpack throughout the ride.

  Fifteen minutes later, the car pulled into the Elm Grove Elementary School parking lot. Justin hopped out quickly and we followed his lead.

  “Thanks, mom!” he called into the car. Mrs. Grant waved and pulled back into traffic. We waved back, then turned to Justin as she drove out of sight.

  “What is going on?” I asked.

  Stephanie had questions of her own. “Where are we? How did you get Catherine out of the house?”

  I chimed in with more questions. “What’s in the backpack? What are we doing at Elm Grove?”

  “Hold on, everybody!” Justin shouted. “I’ll answer all your questions, but let’s do it while we’re walking.” With that, he walked quickly onto the sidewalk and away from the school. Despite his short legs, we had to hurry to keep up with him.

  “Okay, here’s the deal,” Justin began. “I had my mom drop us off at Elm Grove because it’s only three blocks from Middle Street. My plan is to get proof that Mr. Duchesne is there. Then we can call in the FBI to rescue him.”

  “How are we going to get proof?” I asked. “We can’t just knock on the door and ask for him.”

  “That’s exactly what we’re going to do,” Justin said.

  “Are you crazy?” Stephanie yelled.

  “Trust me, I have a plan.” Justin smiled and continued walking.

  We reached Middle Street and made a right-hand turn. Three buildings down, and there it was: 421 Middle Street. It was an older two-story apartment building set back from the road with a couple of large elm trees partially blocking our view. We walked past the building and came to a small park on
the corner of Middle and Twenty-Third Street. We gathered around Justin as he sat down on a bench.

  “So, what’s your plan?” Stephanie asked.

  “It’s a little crazy, but brilliant,” said Catherine, speaking up for the first time since we got out of the car.

  “First things first,” said Stephanie, turning to Catherine. “How did you get out of your house?”

  “That part was easy,” Catherine answered. “Justin just walked up to the front door and knocked. When Justin asked to see me, Agent Carlson said I wasn’t available.”

  “Just like last time,” Justin said with a smile. “But this time I was a little more persistent. Five minutes later, I knocked again, and then five minutes after that, and five minutes after that, and five minutes after that.”

  “But that doesn’t explain how Catherine got out,” I said.

  “Well, by then I knew it was Justin, of course, so I just waited for him to knock again. When the agent went to the front door, I snuck out the back door,” she explained.

  “But isn’t he going to come looking for you?” Stephanie asked.

  “Probably, but he won’t have any idea where to look, will he?” Catherine grinned.

  “Okay, so here’s my idea,” Justin said. We listened intently as he told us what he wanted to do. At times, we shook our heads and offered minor improvements to the plan, but, in the end, Stephanie and I agreed with Catherine. The plan was a little crazy, but it was brilliant.

  Now it was time to see if it would work.

  CHAPTER 13

  The first part of the plan was easy, but maybe the most dangerous. Justin would knock on the door of apartment C. We weren’t sure if the kidnappers would answer the door. If they did, Justin was going to pretend to be selling magazine subscriptions. We did this at our school every year to raise money for playground equipment, school supplies, and stuff like that, so Justin had some old forms he could use as a prop. If someone answered, it would give Justin a chance to take a quick look inside the apartment.

  Stephanie and I kept watch on the front of the apartment building. Apartment C was on the second floor. Catherine’s job was to keep an eye on the back of the building. There was a sliding glass door leading to a small balcony, but there was a thick curtain covering the door.